


And Finally I See It

by Kavi Leighanna (kleighanna)



Series: All The Things I Did Not See [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Mentions of Hospital Stays, allusions to torture, bau'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24799447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kleighanna/pseuds/Kavi%20Leighanna
Summary: He crashes the Valkyrie into the arctic, drags himself out by the skin of his teeth, and gets the heck out of Special Ops. He'd definitely never expected the Bureau to be his next step.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark
Series: All The Things I Did Not See [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/347603
Comments: 9
Kudos: 31





	And Finally I See It

**Author's Note:**

> The biggest thanks to P and J for cheerleading the posting. 
> 
> P, we'll now officially consider this a birthday present. 
> 
> While you absolutely do not need to read the other fics to understand this one, there are allusions to them. Well, at least one of them for sure. Go read Sam's fic after this is what I'm saying.

It is 100% Bucky’s choice to leave the Howling Commandos. 

“He’ll follow you, you know,” Peggy tells him in the hospital. He’s just crashed a plane - the Valkyrie, of all names - and managed to survive three weeks, dragging himself along until he could find a base, and get word to the people who mattered. “If you stay.” 

But, well. He’s been riding the edge for a while, if he’s being honest. Special Forces doesn’t hold the same appeal. It’s old and it’s stale and he loves his country almost more than he loves his mother, god rest her soul, but even Steve Rogers has a limit. 

He’s been through so much, and that was before the plane: experimental hormone treatments; losing Buck to a POW camp no one was sure they’d ever get him out of; seguing into Special Forces due to ‘unparallelled tactical and leadership capabilities’; dragging his best men through the worst missions… 

“I know.” He looks up at her, all but pleads for her to understand. 

“You gonna ask her out now? That we’re away from it all?” 

Steve's smile is small and sad. “Nah, Buck. Can’t do that.” 

“Scared?” 

Steve looks out over New York. “Waited too long.” 

Bucky hums. “Title of your biography.” 

Steve laughs.

Bucky starts disappearing. Not for long, but for long enough and in a pattern that Steve notices. He doesn’t ask. Bucky will tell him when he’s ready and pushing it only results in a fight. Steve’s sick of fighting with Bucky. It’s been non-stop since his hospital release, since Steve’s been ready to get back into life. 

Back into a different fight. 

“I can’t just sit around!” 

“I’m not asking you to,” Bucky replies, exasperated. “I’m asking you to think about it. The CIA, Steve? Really?” 

“What else are we going to do, State Department?” 

“Hell no.”

“Exactly!” 

“Look,” Buck says, and it’s too measured. Steve’s pushing him too far. Steve’s always the one pushing him too far. “Can we think about it? Explore our options?” 

“What options, Buck? NYPD?” 

They both shiver dramatically, not because they have anything against New York’s Finest, but because even Steve knows that would be a little small for him. He’s used to facing down international terrorists with guns pressed to his skull. A beat cop just isn’t going to do it for him. 

“Just. Let’s think about it, okay?” 

And Steve, who is sick of fighting and sick of Bucky treating him like he did when they were little, when Steve’s body hadn’t been able to handle half of what it does now, says, “Okay.” 

“A new unit?” 

The man across from them in the diner could put the worst of the worst to shame. It’s only a long history of being brave - or being stupid, depending on who you asked - that keeps Steve from doing anything that could resemble flinching. 

“Experimental,” Nicholas Fury responds. “Got word your unit was accidentally pioneering profiling.” 

Steve can’t help the look he exchanges with Bucky. 

“We were using behaviour ‘member?” Bucky says calmly. “Captured Zola because we figured he was too caught up in his own importance to see things change around him.” 

Oh!

“Psychology.” 

Fury looks smug. Bucky looked unfazed. 

“Patterns of behaviour.” 

Steve’s intrigued. He knows it shows on his face. He’s never been good at hiding it. “The Bureau?”

“The Bureau,” Fury concurs. 

Steve looks over at Bucky and shrugs. “The Bureau.” 

The thing is, they need a team. He’s not entirely sure how many files he goes through. 

“What kind of team?” 

Steve presses his fingers to his eyes. “You’ve asked me that a hundred times, Buck and I still don’t have an answer.” 

“You built the Commandos.” 

“You built the Commandos.” 

“That is a bald-faced lie-”

“Oh come on!”

“Dugan was yours!” 

“Dugan was impressed you could drink him under the table.” 

“Gabe-”

“Followed Dernier and you were the one that could talk to him in French. You and Gabe. My French is, and continues to be, shit.” Steve shoved the files toward him. “You pick ‘em.” 

“I will not.” Bucky shoves the files back. 

“Stark.”

Steve blinks. “Isn’t he a billionaire? He worked with us.” 

“Belarus, last. Got us the ammo we needed.” Bucky brandishes the paper in his hand and slaps it onto the table. “Turns out, he’s also a billionaire with a personnel file with the FBI.”

“How does he go from weapons manufacturing to the Bureau.” 

“We could ask him.”

“Afghanistan.” Stark tosses a few chocolate covered raisins into his mouth. 

“Afghanistan made you an expert in behavioural analysis?”

“My degrees make me an expert. And a genius. The behavioural analysis just made sense.”

“Made sense.” 

Stark points a finger at him. “You live with a terrorist for six months, then mock the way being able to predict if he’s going to be happy or smack me around a little doesn’t make sense.”

Oh. 

Bucky leans forward. “POW. Russian camp.” He points to Steve. “Left for dead in the Arctic when he crashed a plane.”

Chips off the same block. Trauma and survival. 

“I know that. Everyone knows that. Say, did they really find you in a block of ice, Cap?”

Steve sighs. This is a bad idea. This is a horrible idea. “Fury.”

There’s actual blessed silence for a beat. “The Behavioural Analysis Unit. I thought he got shut down.”

“Waiting for the right people,” Steve offers instead. 

“I’m right people? I thought my psych eval disqualified me from Fury’s super cool boy band.”

Steve exchanges a look with Bucky. “Not his choice.” 

“Ooh, behind dad’s back.” But Stark leans forward and Steve recognizes the glint in his eye. “I’m in.” 

Their “bullpen” is in the basement. It’s not great. 

Stark takes one look and his face turns to stone. “No.” 

“Stark.” 

“Not happening.”

“Tony-” 

“I refuse.” 

“It’s not permanent.”

“Paper?!” 

Steve pulls up short. He’d been prepared for a trauma response, not indignation. “What?” 

“Paper. It’s archaic. Isn’t the Bureau digital? The Bureau should be digital.” 

Steve looks to Bucky. “I…”

Stark waves absently. Steve takes that to mean his response is unnecessary. 

“Gentlemen.”

“Sir.”

“Why is there paper?” 

Nick Fury’s stare is blank, unaffected. “Mr. Stark.”

“Agent,” he answers, spinning in what could approximately be called a pirouette. “You made me Agent.” 

Fury looks at Steve. Steve shrugs. “You said I could choose.” 

“I’m regretting that decision.” 

Peggy used to say the same thing. So did Colonel Phillips. Steve would bet it won’t be the last either. He has a history. He also has a history with stellar teams. “Stark.”

Stark looks up from his muttering, not quite at attention but aware. “Give me three days.” 

“What?” 

“Three days and a technical analyst. We are  _ not _ doing this with paper.” 

Insert: Darcy Lewis. 

“I said a technical analyst, not a pinup model.” 

“You’ll be pinned up to that wall over there if you can’t shut it,” Lewis replies smoothly. Steve looks to Bucky. Bucky is trying not to laugh. 

“Feisty.” 

“Are we going to talk or are we going to play with computers.” 

Stark leans back, all arrogance and true belief that she cannot be as good as the Bureau seems to make her out to be. “Show me what you got.” 

What she’s got is an ability to wrangle the world’s most narcissistic billionaire and take the seventy-two hours they wanted to get the files digital down to sixty. 

“I mostly tagged,” she says, when Steve comes in to find her, messy bun and are those puppy leggings? “Stark’s technology did ninety percent of the work.” 

“Where is he?” 

“Crashed. A foxy redhead came and got him.” 

Pepper Potts. Steve likes her. “What’s the damage?” 

Here, Lewis looks both awed and perplexed. “I have never worked with the level of technology he brought in. Most of us only dream of working with Stark tech, you know? He brought in his damn AI.” She waves around the room. Steve clocks four cameras, plus one in the middle. “We laid out the pages, and the AI did the work. Scanned all of this into secure digital databases.” 

“All of them?” 

Lewis’ eyes are shining. “I know. He’s a pain in the ass, Agent Rogers, but he’s a really goddamn good pain in the ass.” 

“Call me Steve,” he says, then holds out a hand. “Welcome to the team.” 

Sam takes zero convincing. 

Steve is… actually a little shocked. 

“Barnes has been telling me about it since we started running,” Sam reveals, amusement in every line of his body. “Aren’t y’all psychically connected or whatever?” 

“You know, he tried to tell me I was the one that always chose the teams.” 

Now Sam’s mirth is clear as day on his face. “He always lie to you?” 

“All the time,” Steve agrees. “I appreciate that generally speaking, he does so to my face.” 

“Not many people going to lie to Captain America.” 

“That name stays buried.” 

“You got it, Cap.” 


End file.
